So, I know all you want to know is what happens after the film breaks. Here you go:

Cody and Company leave the moon with very little drama. No just kidding, as they take off, Joan dutifully goes for coffee. The captured Moon Man (who Cody sternly sent to his room) attacks Joan and Ted, still in the rocket man suit, with a stick or something. Big tussle as the pilot is knocked down before the ship leaves the moon orbit. Bravely, with Cody rolling around with the moon man, the pilot flies the ship on his knees. The moon man grabs a gun and while wrestling with Cody, the moon man is shot. The body is tossed into space as the crew sets for Earth. Joan never does get the coffee.

Meanwhile, Retik calls Krog and his two stupid thugs. Retik informs Krog and the stupid thugs of Cody’s impending return to Earth, and orders Cody’s Rocket Ship to be shot down. Retik threatens the crew that failure may mean death.

Cody pretends to do math to figure out a landing. Our thugs and Krog, coincidently, do the same math, and Graber and Daly show up with the death ray. The thugs fire and miss as the ship tries to land.

Cody, armed with only a pistol, jumps out of the ship to take on the death ray. The ship is running low on fuel. The thugs hit Cody, but he is able to fall safely, just as the ship has to turn and land, nearly out of fuel.

Cody steps out of the bushes and sneaks around to shoot at Graber and Daly. Gun fight ensues, and the thugs actually use the death ray on Cody. The crooks, needing to get rid of Cody before shooting the ship, shoot the cliff above Cody, causing an avalanche!

You would think a doomsday weapon would be more moveable. Again, if these thugs could do the ‘right’ thing and just kill Cody, we could be done with this story chapters ago.

Remember when going to the moon, wait, I think I used that joke before. Again, why the serials had to disappear. Too repetitive. The launch scene in this chapter is one of the better effect sequences in the serial.

Wouldn’t rockets from Earth be super easy to detect? It wasn’t like there were daily shuttles or anything like that.

Yep, very lucky break the one single moon man we see knows everything you need to know Cody. I know coincidence is the driving force behind most “kid” fiction, but this pushes even beyond that level of believability.

Is shooting a door holding dangerous materials really all that wise?

The recycled tank from Undersea Kingdom! It never gets its due for multiple MST3K appearances.

So, knowing the budgets, I bet this is footage of the tank chasing itself.

Busted airline? Attacking Tank? An amateur in Cody’s helmet? How will this turn out?

Watchability: 3 of 5. Not bad, this chapter had a change in formula, made it seem fresher. Well-paced and decent action. One of the best chapters so far.

Missing the Riffs: 4 of 5. The riffing was definitely getting weaker by this point in the serial.

I can see why the Serials were never seen through to the end on MST3K. Not only is there the same formula to every f’ing episode, but trying to get 12 episodes worth of credit jokes is a task too Herculean for the SOL crew.

Just grabs a gun and shoves it in his pants. Cody does love his risky behavior.

Cheaper to show a picture of the moon than to step outside and actually film the moon.

Krog looks like he is borrowing Bela’s lab from Bride of the Monster.

Cody is one of those guys who always finds a fight wherever he goes. He has a very punchable face, I suppose.

The Thugs have no qualms about dropping atomic bombs or blasting troop trains, but won’t finish Cody off when they get the chance?!?

This must be the ‘padding’ episode: lots of flying and driving. In this light, the Mads making the crew watch two chapters and this dull as dishwater chapter being one of them, is especially cruel.

Ah yes, the tiny little bomb chapter!

Watchability: 1 of 5. Like I said, this was the ‘padding’ episodes. Lots of driving/flying footage with music designed to make it seem like something was happening. The little bomb/laser fight at the end wasn’t enough action for the little kid in me.

Missing the Riffs: 2 of 5. So it wasn’t the time away. This is one that the SOL crew helps a lot, even though you could tell they were starting to get tired of the whole thing.

I remember as a kid a show on public TV call Matinee at the Bijou. It was the whole ‘old time’ movie experience, with a cartoon, a newsreel/short, a serial and then a movie. I always loved the serial, a lifetime love of the Phantom Empire was instilled by that show. The serials are some of my favorite shorts on MST3K. I wish there was more Phantom Creeps and Undersea Kingdom. I wish there was Spy Smasher and other serials on the show as well.

Admittedly, Commando Cody isn’t top shelf serial material. One of the many ‘rocket men’ Republic had in there serial stable, but like Rocky Jones, I love the corny sincerity of it all. There was zero research into any of the science. The effects are crude by even the standards of the day. But I still find it a heckuvalota fun.

My uncle tells me when he was a kid, you would get a punch card for the serials, and if you made the first 11 chapters, you got into the last one free.

Anyway, I typed right through the premiere episode. I plan on watching the 3 serials in their entirety, not just the MST3K chapters. Why? I can, so, why not.

This is the first short I’ve gone after, and it is a downer. Honestly, when watching The Amazing Transparent Man, I usually skip this short. I have even told my wife we can skip over this short when our watch through gets to this experiment.

Now I appreciate safety. Safety keeps us, well, safe. But this is like the liturgical version of Scared Straight.

The priest looks almost depressed. And it sounds like he wrote his own script too.

In the first story, about Joe and his gal, they make it hard to like a selfish guy like Joe. It isn’t just the burden on his gal and his own struggles, he put two coworkers in danger.

And not a comforting word from the priest to any of these people when he comes across them. Nope, just their tragic stories and depressed looks. Like, couldn’t the priest try to get old George and his friend’s family together to talk things over? Isn’t that what priest do?

It seems, in the ‘gentle pressure’ bit, that Charlie’s co-worker really held that torch in Charlie’s eyes. Granted, I never handled a welding torch like railroad workers would handle. Maybe your natural reaction is to bring that torch up to face level and move it back and forth.

If I drank, I’d need one now.

Watchability: 0 of 5. Trust me, stay away for your own mental health.

Missing the Riffs: 0 of 5. I don’t want to watch it with the riffs. This is my least favorite thing they watched on MST3K.